And Look How Far We've Come, My Dear
by the-ever-fading-forest
Summary: "Natalia began to walk slowly down the stairs of the fire escape, keeping her guns trained on him the whole time." Clint and Natasha meet as teenagers. Set long before the first Avengers film at the start, but will lead up to Natasha joining SHIELD and maybe to the events of Avengers: Assemble. Another STRIKE TEAM:Delta origin story.
1. Chapter 1

She could still remember the first time they met, over half a life time ago, those two scarred teenagers, far too young to hold the weapons they wielded and to wear the haunted expressions they could never run away from.

She was still Natalia then, to everyone but him, and must have been fourteen years old. A child, still blinkered by the ideals pressed upon her, and all the other girls in the Red Room, by angry men and cold soldiers. It was roughly three years before she inherited the Black Widow's title, on a fairly routine training mission. Nothing special. And it still managed to go to shit, spectacularly, after barely four hours.

It began in a dark, dank alleyway, outside of a large, notorious casino in Berlin. Mid October. Fucking freezing. Crouching on a fire escape, three stories up, she sighted her target, exactly as she had been told she would.

The German businessman stood by the left wall, opposite her, and removed his phone from his jacket pocket. Natalia was too far away to see the screen, and the prickling feeling at the back of her neck didn't get her attention fast enough, as she suddenly found herself pinned to the wall by a huge hand at her throat. She struggled to reach her fallen hand guns, the scoped sniper rifle well out of reach. She could feel her vision begin to blur around the edges. The man trapping her was well over twice her size and his hold was starting to constrict her airways. So it was , understandably, quite a shock when he collapsed to the ground, failing over the railings and landing with a thud that would probably been sickening to any one who hadn't heard it all a thousand times before.

Instinct battled her surprise, and Natalia quickly recovered her hand guns, noting that the rifle was broken, presumably by the man who now lay dead from his fall. Or from the arrow protruding from his skull.

Natalia held her Glock pistols out in front of her, searching for the archer. He was stood below her, holding his bow, loaded, with a level of skill that was disturbing in a boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. He called out in clumsy German, staring right at her;

"Are there any more?"

She looked back at him, never lowering her weapons. She had the advantage of height, but he'd already shown what he could do with that bow.

"I did not ask for your help." She could tell from his accent he was American, and his German was awful, so she spoke in English.

"Yeah, but you needed it, didn't you?" The boy was fairly skinny, quite short, and had messy dark-blonde hair. Natalia mentally shook her head. Stop it, you don't make them human. He is a heart and a brain. Take your pick, girl, he dies wherever you aim.

He was talking again.

"Come on, you could at least say thank you! I just saved your life!" Christ, did he have a death wish? Was that it? She should shoot him now, as she had been trained to do.

But now there was a little voice in the back of her head, telling her that this boy was hardly older than her, and he had, quite possibly just saved her life. Jesus, was that her conscience?! Where the fuck had that come from? She hadn't known she'd had one, and anyway, she'd dispatched children younger than herself before. Why did she suddenly care about it?

You used to care, the voice piped up, as the boy was saying something about beautiful, ungrateful girls with scary guns not having any manners. Natalia firmly told the voice to fuck off and considered saying the same thing to the archer standing down on the ground, before he interrupted her thoughts.

"Hey, you know you're bleeding, right?" She hadn't actually noticed the shoulder wound wound until he said that, but she did now, and, god, it hurt like a bitch. The blood, an alarming amount of it, was dribbling down her hooded sweatshirt, soaking it. Natalia began to walk slowly down the stairs of the fire escape, keeping her guns trained on him the whole time. To her surprise, the boy lowered his bow to the ground and raised his hands above his head. She stared at him. Was this kid suicidal or something?

"Will you let me help you?" Okay. That was unexpected. Not to mention weird.

"Why would I do that?" She enquired, the throbbing pain in her shoulder starting to increase with the effort of holding her hand gun up.

"Because, if you don't, you're probably going to bleed out where you stand." He replied, simply.

Crap.

He had a point. She waved the guns at him.

"I'm not lowering these." Not an invitation, but not a rejection either. He gave her a goofy grin.

"I'm not asking you to." He walked over to her, sliding his backpack off of his shoulders. Natalia backed up, eyes widening. The boy chuckled.

"Easy, sweetheart," She glared at him, which only made him smile. "It's a medical kit, calm down."  
He put down the backpack and pulled out a plastic box.

"See? No weapons, just bandages. Do you mind sitting down? It'd probably be more comfortable." Reluctantly, Natalia did as he asked, removing her hoodie and sitting with her back against the wall of the casino. The wound was in her right shoulder. The gun in her left hand rested on her knee, pointed at him. For some reason, this made him smile again, as he knelt beside her, removing stuff from the kit. He carefully cut away the blood-soaked material of her t-shirt and put pressure on the cut, causing her to draw in a breath, gritting her teeth. Her glanced at her and she almost had to look away, because the sympathy on his face was so unfamiliar.

"Sorry. As far as I can see, it's not awful, but you'd have been in trouble if you'd left it much longer. Knife wound, clean cut, lot's of blood, not terrible damage."

"Expert, are you?"

"Something like that," He shrugged. " I've had the same thing, at least. It's best if I stitch this up, are you okay with that?" She grimaced, but nodded, wanting to shut her eyes tight. Not because of the pain. He had that sympathetic expression again.

"Do it." He nodded, already getting a needle out of the package that kept it sterile. Natalia watched as he threaded it with an expert hand and brought it up to her shoulder.

"This is gonna hurt." She just rolled her eyes at him, impatiently.

"I know, get on with it." She wanted to cry out when the needle went in the first time and had lost track by the fifth, but could still hear soft words from the boy next to her.

She wished they weren't so comforting.

"Okay, you're good, that should hold it all together." He said, carefully bandaging the newly-stitched wound. He tried to help her back into her hoodie, but she shook him off, protesting crossly; "I'm fine." He chuckled again, putting the medical kit back into his backpack and standing up.

"Right, you're fine, I get it, jeez, " he paused as she pulled herself to her feet, awkwardly. "What's your name? Natalia shot him an incredulous look, one that clearly said: "What the fuck are you on?" He let out a small huff of a laugh.

"Okay, then, what can I call you?" She hesitated for a moment, before answering with one of her favourite names of the ones she used on missions.

"Natasha. You can call me Natasha." He grinned again, the smile far too big for his face.

"I'm Clint Barton. Why are you here?" She glared at him.

"You need to learn to shut up." She told him, looking over at the man he shot with the bow.

"And you need to learn some manners." The boy-Clint-retorted, following her gaze. "I killed the other guy as well, by the way." he added, softly, as he retrieved his bow. This puzzled her, slightly.

"Why?" He shrugged.

"I'm kind of a bow-for-hire. He was my mission." Natalia stared at him.

"Mine, too." Clint nodded, slinging his bag back on.

"You know why he was supposed to die?" She shook her head. " Nah, me neither. Anyway," he turned to face her, " I guess I should be going." She nodded, her check-in time was coming up.

"Yeah, me too." She paused, momentarily. "Um, thank you, I guess, Clint." He grinned again.

"You're welcome, Natasha. Thank you for not shooting me." She gave him a faint smile, a real one and he held out a hand. After a moment, Natalia holstered one gun an shook it.

"Maybe I'll see you again." He said, as she let go.

"I shouldn't think so," She replied. He smiled ruefully and slung his bow over one shoulder.

They walked to the entrance of the alleyway together, stopping a few paces short of the pavement.

"Well," Clint looked over at her, "Goodbye, Natasha." She nodded

"Yeah, goodbye, Clint." He gave her one last smile, before they went their separate ways, each resisting the urge to look back and watch the other walk away.


	2. Chapter 2

Although the boy with the bow haunted her dreams for the weeks after the mission in Germany, she hardly thought of him afterwards, as the cruel world of the Red Room pulled her back in.

He was there, though. In the back of her mind, blue eyed and smiling.

But, almost seven years later, as a now twenty-year-old Natalia, the new Black Widow, walked away from the burning hospital, with red curling to the dark sky and staining her overflowing ledger, his face came to the forefront of her mind. The American archer, the teenaged witness she hadn't killed, over half a decade ago. And, while the screaming fire engine rushed to the flaming building, she wondered where he was now.

Probably dead, to be honest. Or in prison.

She sighed and began to make her way through the shadowed back streets of the city, her hand never leaving the holstered Glock. 45, the same type, she remembered, as she'd aimed at him.

The arranged meeting point was situated in the worst part of the city, filled with the people who had sunk to the very lowest, dropped of the map, or simply been born there and failed to escape. She was used to places like this, to people like these. The after-kill check-ins were always in places like this one, so she had no reason to think this one was going to be any different from the others.

Not until she heard the shouting. Then the dull 'thunk' of bullets burying themselves in bodies.

No. Not bullets.

Arrows.

As she moved closer to the sounds, Natalia could feel her heart rate speed up, her feet following suit and carrying her to the entrance of the alleyway where, on the damp, rain-soaked gravel, lay a man she recognised as a Red Room asset. Four metres ahead, there were three more. Each one with a single arrow buried in one eye socket. Each one with the same surprised expression, as if they couldn't quite comprehend what had happened to them.

Her guns were already up, her eyes already searching the alleyway, looking for the archer and praying to whatever gods might be out there that it wasn't _her_ archer. Clint. Because she wouldn't be able to let him get away again.

A slight movement on the shadowed roof of the condemned apartment building to her left alerted her to the archer's hiding place. Both guns were aimed at it in seconds, her heart beating so loudly that it was a wonder the rooftop killer didn't hear it, to.

"Black Widow!" The voice was deep, a man's, which subsequently lowered the chances of it _not_ being him by far too much. And what kind of idiot called out his mark's name when trying to do them in, anyway? A fucking stupid one, obviously, which lowered the chances even more.

A thud to her left told her he had dropped to the ground. He'd given up his height advantage, just as she had done, six years before, walking the rain-slick steps of that Berlin fire escape.

She turned to face him, finding herself at the business end of a loaded bow, with blue-grey eyes locked on to her own green ones.

Well, shit.

He was taller, older, but that was to be expected. He must have been twenty-three or twenty-four, and she watched the eyes of the smiling sixteen-year-old widen as he, in turn, recognised her.

"Natasha?" She almost smiled, because, God, it'd been a while since anyone had called her that. She was hardly ever referred to as anything other than Black Widow anymore.

With that one word, she was fourteen years old again, a bleeding shoulder and shorter hair, a broken rifle and a black hoodie. And him. He was broader as well as taller, his hair close-cropped, wearing dark uniform. They stared at each other, neither one lowering their weapons.

"You know," He said, an expression of disbelief adorning his features, "We've really got to stop meeting like this." She ignored this, fixing him with a sharp glare.

"You." Natalia moved slightly closer and he shut up for a moment (Throw a party! It's a fucking miracle!)

"You're the Black Widow?" She gave a cold look.

"Yes. And you're not a bow-for-hire anymore."

"I'm supposed to kill you." He said, and she noticed the string of his bow became less taunt.

"Well, you'd better get on with it, then. I haven't got all day."

He looked at her, the boy with the bow, right in the eyes, and he let the arrow fall from the string, taking a step backwards. She stared at him, confused, even though her facial expressions gave nothing away.

"What are you doing?" He met her eyes with his again.

"I'm not going to kill you, Natasha. I _can't_ kill you. You didn't choose this. You didn't choose any of this." She shrugged.

"I didn't do anything much to stop it, either." He went on as though she hadn't spoken.

"Before, you were what? Fourteen? The Red Room, they brainwashed you, right? All mind control and shit. You can't _choose_ that." The Red Room, she was surprised he'd even heard of it. Hardly anyone ever had. He was clearly in a very different place to the scruffy-haired, grubby-clothed Clint Barton she'd met in Germany.

"Who do you work for?" She asked, causing him to pause, but only momentarily. He seemed to come to a decision.

"SHEILD. I work for SHEILD." She raised her eyebrows, but gripped the guns tighter.

"SHEILD wants me dead." It wasn't a question.

"A lot of people want you dead" Natalia rolled her eyes at him.

"Tell me something I don't know." He hesitated again, his bow now attached to his belt before blurting out the last thing she'd expected.

"You could come with me."

"What?"

"Come with me, switch sides. Join SHEILD. Leave them." The poor boy actually looked serious.

"Are you fucking insane? Do you actually think SHEILD is just going to forget everything, all the dead agents, the screwed-up missions, and just accept me with open arms? The fucking Black Widow? Are you that naïve?"

"I can talk to them, persuade Coulson to put a good word in for you. Besides," He added, with more than a hint of arrogant pride in his voice, "I'm one of their best agents, I've got some sway in there." She raised her eyebrows again (they were going to stay like that if he didn't stop being an idiot)

"Why should I trust you?" He just blinked at her. She almost smiled, "Go on, give me one good reason." Natalia was expecting him to come out with something about that night, all those years ago. Instead, he opened his mouth and said the last thing she was expecting.

"I can't."

"I'm sorry?"

"I can't," He repeated, "So, I'm not asking you to trust me, I'm asking you to take a chance. An offer. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I'll do everything I can to get them to take you." There was a sort of heartfelt simplicity in his words that Natalia wasn't sure she'd ever heard someone use genuinely before.

"Why?" She asked, now contemplating lowering her guns. He just shrugged.

"Because I was on your end of this, once, and Coulson, the guy who gave me this offer, he said that, if I was ever in a position to, I should do the same for someone else. So, here we are."

"I doubt this was exactly what he had in mind," she commented, drily, "You, recruiting the Black Widow."

"Black Widow, whatever. I'm recruiting Natasha." He offered her a goofy grin, the same one as his teenaged self, too big for his face. She swallowed.

"Only if you promise me one thing." He nodded, eagerly.

"What?"

"The Red Room, they won't just let me leave, especially after.." She waved at the bodies he'd left around the alleyway,"If they come after me..." She trailed off, looking at him.

"You'll be protected." He answered, firmly. "That, I can do." His expression was serious now. "There's a SHIELD safe house a little way from here. I can contact my handler from there, and then...well, I'll talk to him"

"God, that's so reassuring, _Clint_." He grinned, his whole face lighting up.

"Hey, you remembered my name!" She raised her eyebrows ( _again_ ) and shot him a 'well, _duh_.' look.

"What did you expect?"

"Um, I dunno." He said, shrugging, and began to collect his arrows from the four dead men, pulling them from four eye sockets. Expertly. She watched him place them back into his quiver and begin walking out to the street. He turned, facing her.

"You coming?" Natalia hesitated for a moment, but even an uncertain truce with one assassin-turned-SHIELD-agent was better than the Red Room and what they'd do to her for even considering leaving them.

So, she nodded, slowly, and caught up with Clint.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey, welcome to chapter three. Sorry for the really long update time, I'm currently doing my mocks and haven't had much time to write. Thank you so much for the awesome response to this fic, it's my first one ever!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this fanfiction, or anything to do with Marvel (shocker, right?).

"It's about a twenty minute walk," Barton was saying, "On the outskirts." Natalia nodded, walking a  
pace or two behind the young archer. The journey continued in silence and Natalia noticed that they were passing fewer and fewer houses as time went on. For the last five minutes, there were only a couple of small buildings at the roadside. Clint's voice interrupted her thoughts, and she saw that he had stopped.

"This is it." He was gesturing at a small, two room house, more of a shack, really, that was positioned a fair way from the road.

"This is your safe house?" She stared at him, incredulously. Clint just shrugged as he unlocked the door.

"No need to sound so enthusiastic, Red," She glared at him, but he either didn't see or chose to ignore it. "We don't get too many missions in San Paolo. After you." He pushed the door open and moved aside in order for her to step in. Moving past him, Natalia looked around at what appeared to be a very utilitarian space, consisting of a stove, a fridge, a two-person table, one bookshelf, a couple of cupboards and a small double bed in one corner. A threadbare carpet covered most of the floor and a battered old sofa was stood in front of an ancient, clunky looking TV. Natalia noticed only one door, other than the front one. This, on closer inspection, lead to a tiny bathroom.

"Wow." She commented, drily. He grinned (seriously, was this guy _ever_ unhappy?).

"Yeah, you should see the one in Inverness." At the questioning look she gave him, Clint elaborated. "I managed to really piss off the bosses.."

"God, I wonder how." Natalia interrupted, not even attempting to hide her sarcasm. He mock-glared at her.

"Ha ha, anyway, as I was _saying_ ; I ended up spending four weeks freezing my nuts off in Scotland until Coulson persuaded the Director to let me back. It was horrible, there was no one to talk to except cows and the occasional farmer."

"Bored out of your tiny mind."

"Hey!" Clint protested, still grinning. Natalia almost smiled back. Almost.

"Well, anyway, Ice Queen," (she really hoped they weren't staying here long, she might have to accidentally murder him) "It's kinda late and, I dunno about you, but killing nasty bastards makes me tired." This earned him another eyebrow raise (she was serious now, they were going to get permanently stuck in the middle of her forehead if he didn't stop being such a _fucking idiot_ )

"So," Clint continued. "you have the bed and I'll take the sofa."

"Are you sure?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't, Tasha." (Jesus Christ, was a three syllable name really too much for his tiny brain?) Natalia rolled her eyes at the nickname, but couldn't suppress a slight smile.

"Thank you." Barton's grin practically split his face open.

"Ha! You smiled!" This earned him another eye roll, as he walked over to a bag that had been dumped on the sofa. Clint rummaged inside it for a moment, before pulling out a clean t-shirt and pair of sweatpants. He proceeded to hand them to her, explaining that they were "For sleeping in, so you're comfortable." She nodded at him, accepted the clothes, and retreated to the minuscule bathroom to change.

Looking in the mirror that hung crookedly over the sink, her hair damp from the shower, wearing his t-shirt, Natalia paused for a moment. She'd never liked looking at her reflection, not since she was a child. Maybe it was something to do with the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that had lined the rooms in which she'd learnt both ballet and how to kill someone with her bare hands. That'd make sense. For once, Natalia looked herself right in the eyes.

"I can do this. I can start over and I will."

When she returned to the main room of the safe house, it was to find Clint making dinner. Well. He was heating up leftovers.

"Hey." He pushed a bowl of food towards her. Natalia glanced up at him, picking up a spoon.

"Hey."

"So," Clint began, as they sat down at the table. "I can't get hold of my handler until morning, because this mission doesn't have open comms unless I use the emergency channel, which will bring down a SHIELD fast-response team on our asses, and is about the last thing we need right now."

"Because they'll kill me." Clint smirked.

"Aren't you a little ray of sunshine. But, yeah, probably. You've got to get your side of the story over first, so we wait until I get contacted, and you can bowl them all over with your dazzling charm." Natalia glared at him.

"Very funny, Legolas." Clint shot her an exaggerated look of surprise.

"Did you just make a joke, Natasha?" She ignored him, steering the subject back to Clint's handler.

"So, we wait here until you get the call?"

"Yep, so you might want to get some sleep." He said, carrying his dish to the sink, then pulled a spare duvet and pillow from a drawer under the bed. Dumping these onto the couch, he disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Natalia to wash up her bowl and sit down on the bed. This gave her an unwelcome opportunity to think about what the hell she was doing.

"You're taking a chance," She told herself. "There's red in your ledger. So much fucking red. Maybe this can help wipe it out."  
So much fucking red. And now there was the hospital fire to add to the list of things she wanted so badly to forget. The children's ward...

No. Shut up. Shut up, shut up shut up. Concentrate on this, On leaving it behind. On the crazy, weird-ass archer in the next room who, for some bat-shit reason, seems to think you're worth a second chance. Just take it and _stop fucking talking to yourself._


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Clint returned from the bathroom, damp-haired and wearing pyjamas, Natalia had, for the most part, managed to pull herself together. Sort of.

"I'm gonna go to bed now, okay?" She glanced up at the blonde archer, watching him walk over to the sofa.

"You're not afraid I'll slit your throat while you sleep?" What? She was curious, she wouldn't have wanted to sleep in a room with someone like her. Clint just shrugged.

"Should I be?" It was slightly weird, how little she had to think about her answer.

"No." He threw her a cheeky smile.

"You sure?" Natalia rolled her eyes as he pulled his duvet over himself.

"Quite sure, Barton."

"Good to know. Goodnight, Natasha." She nodded, but didn't return the pleasantry.

Sliding under the duvet and settling her head on the pillow, Natalia hated how she could immediately match the way the fabric under her cheek smelt to the way he did. It was useless to try not to associate herself with him (he'd save her life twice, for crying out loud), but it was how she'd been trained.

Sighing, Natalia raised her right hand and placed it above her head, hating that she found it so hard to fall asleep in any position other than the one she'd spent every night in the the Red Room in. Handcuffed to the headboard.

Strange, the things a person can get used to.

She should have been used to the nightmares. To the memories that trapped her mind and held her tight, binding her securely to her past. Natalia wished she could train herself to block them out, the way she could while awake, but she still woke up, less than two hours after finally drifting off, sitting bolt upright and breathing heavily, trying not to cry out. She didn't want him to wake up, but obviously wasn't as heavy a sleeper as she'd hoped.

"Natasha? Are you okay over there?" The voice from the sofa sounded concerned, but her own didn't seem to be working.

"Sorry," He continued, "Stupid question." He was closer now. Natalia heard the soft 'click' of a switch and the small room was bathed in weak light. She hugged her knees to her chest. He began to speak again.

"Did...um... did you have a nightmare?" Natalia turned away and stared at the off-white of the wall, wishing he didn't sound so much like he genuinely cared. She didn't want him to care about her. She didn't want anybody to care about her.

"I'll...I'll just go, then, okay?" Yes. Go back to sleep and please forget this ever happened.

She heard him pad back to the sofa, heard the light switch again, the room draped back in darkness.

It look a long time for her to close her eyes again but, when she did, she fell asleep to the sound of his soft breathing.

-

"So, we gotta work on your attitude." Clint said, pointing his cereal spoon at Natalia. Neither of them had mentioned the events of the previous night.

"There's nothing wrong with my attitude." He laughed. She congratulated herself on not punching him. It took serious restraint.

"Sure, but I wouldn't want to give you a job in my secret agency. I'd want to run the fuck away."

"So why didn't you?" Clint gave her a look.

"Don't change the subject, Tasha." Natalia sighed, letting the nickname slide.

"Fine, what's wrong with my attitude?" Clint grinned and started to check points off on his fingers.

"Well, there's the eye-rolling, the glaring, the threats, the sarcasm..." She cut him off with a deadly glare, before realising that she was only proving him right and making him laugh again.

"You see?" Clint continued, taking both of their bowls to the sink and starting to wash up. "You're kind of intimidating, Red." Natalia managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes, just to show him she could.

"I'm supposed to be intimidating, it's part of the job description. You're meant to put the fear of god into someone, not offer them tea. Scaring people is sort of the point, Barton."

"Is that supposed to be a dig at me?" She smirked.

"Yes. You're too goddamn nice, Clint."

"And I'm the SHEILD agent in the room. Clearly, being nice got me somewhere."

Fine. He had a point. Look, she admitted it!

"So I should just pretend to be a completely different person and I'll be fine?" Clint shrugged.

"I was trying to put it less bluntly but, sure. That might do it."

She wished his stupid handler would activate the communications system Barton had been fiddling with all morning already. She was ready to leave San Paulo, ready to pretend leaving would stop her from seeing the flames consuming the hospital every time she closed her eyes.

Clint was writing up his mission report, hunched over a laptop with the SHEILD eagle symbol on the cover (which was kind of dumb because, if anybody tried to kidnap Barton, they'd know who he worked for by looking in his bag. The notion that she might have signed on to the most egotistical government agency in the world _had_ crossed her mind.) Natalia doubted that he was having a party over there, but at least he had something to do. He wouldn't let her help him with the bloody thing, something to do with 'level seven or above protocol' or some other bullshit.

To put it shortly, Natalia was bored. Then Barton's comms unit started squawking from it's place next to him on the table. Clint grinned and reached for the devise.

"Do you want me to put it on speaker?" Natalia shrugged, but he did it anyway.

"Come in, Hawkeye." The voice crackled over the line. Natalia turned to Clint.

"Hawkeye? Seriously?" Clint smiled and pressed a finger to his lips. The voice took on an impatient  
tone.

"Clint, answer me." Thank god. She wasn't the only one to find him infuriating, and this poor soul had probably been dealing with Clint for a whole lot longer.

"Hey, Coulson! Reading you loud and clear." Natalia could hear the sigh over the line.

"Good. Was the mission successful? Are you ready for pick up?"

Clint turned to Natalia. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, about that, Coulson..."

"Clint..."

"So, maybe I didn't do exactly what it said in the dossier, but I found a new agent and she's promised to be good!" Natalia glared at him.

"I said nothing of the kind."

Coulson groaned.

"Don't go anywhere. I'm coming over with the pick up team, then we'll sort out your shit."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Hey, everyone. I'm really sorry for the slow update time, I've been away and wifi-less for much of the holiday period, so I haven't been able to get on with this story. Also, if anyone cares, I have figured out the time-period for this fic at it's current point. I'm going by some info from Cap 2, where the computer-brain Arnim Zola mentioned that Natasha was born in 1984. By this logic, the first chapter was set in 1998 and, from chapter two onwards, it's 2004 and Natasha and Clint are twenty and twenty and twenty-three respectively. Clint's birthday wasn't given, but I figured he probably wasn't much older than Natasha. Also, a massive thanks to all you lovely people who have followed, favourited and reviewed. You guys are the best and your feedback for this fic has been so awesome! Happy new year!**

She was going to kill him. More than that, she was going to kill him _painfully_ and enjoy it, because he had probably blown any chance she had ever had of getting into SHIELD, or at least of not being

shot by the first agent to step through the door of this stupidly small safe house.

Unfortunately, killing him would mean having to deal with having the whole of SHIELD on her back, which she could live without, to be honest. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was kind of getting used to him, and that killing him would mean killing the boy who had sewn up her knife wound in Germany. The boy who had saved a girl with two guns pointed at his head, a girl he had never met before.

No. It had nothing to do with that.

Clint, entirely oblivious to the death glares he was reviving, had returned to his laptop. It took twenty minutes of silence for him to realise he might not be Natalia's current favourite person. She heard the soft click of his computer lid being shut and, a few moments later, heard him flop down next to her on the sofa.

"What's wrong?" When Natalia didn't answer, Clint was quiet for a moment. "Hey, I realise this is pretty overdue, but how's your shoulder?" Natalia stared at him.

"My shoulder?" Clint nodded.

"Uh-huh."

"The shoulder that got stabbed _six years ago_?" He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, it's not like we've had much of a chance to catch up since." Natalia rolled her eyes, forgetting that she was trying not to do that. Why was proving him wrong so _hard_?

"So," Clint continued, smiling at her, "You didn't answer."

"It's fine." she replied, then grudgingly added, "You did a pretty good job with the stitches." Clint smirked.

"'Course I did." The reply got him another eye-roll, but it made her wonder about something she hadn't actually thought about since the first few weeks after meeting Clint in Berlin.

"Were did you learn to do that, anyway?" Clint looked a little surprised, which wasn't really unexpected. This was the first thing resembling a personal conversation they'd had so far.

"What, the stitches and stuff? I just sort of picked it up, see. I grew up in the kind of places people got injured in a lot."

"Places people got knifed in?" Clint grinned, getting up from the sofa.

"You'd be surprised, Nat." Ugh. Again with the nicknaming. "Anyway, the extraction team is meeting us a few miles from here. We should get going, 'cause I'm always late and you gotta make a good first impression."

"What happens after that? After we meet up with your handler?" Clint shrugged.

"I dunno, really. We go back to SHIELD. I get yelled at and we show them that we're better off with you on our side."

"As opposed to with a bullet in my head."

"Way to look on the bright side, Natasha. But yeah, in simple terms."

"Who's 'them' anyway?" She was stood beside him now, as he started to pack.

"'Them'? Oh, Fury, I guess. Phil first, though. He should be okay, though. He's the guy who recruited me. Then Fury, then the Council. They're the big guys."

"Have you ever met them?"

"No," Clint was gave her a funny look. "How come you're being so chatty all of a sudden?"

"Apparently I'm intimidating. Is this any better?" She replied, drily. He made a face.

"Actually, it's kind of creepy, but that's only because I've seen you being normal. And by normal, I mean scary." He was stuffing clothes into a bag, now, rummaging in cupboards to check he wasn't leaving anything behind.

"Oh, you're gonna want these." Natalia looked up to see Clint holding her hand-guns out to her. "You have to promise not to shoot any of the extraction team people."

"Even if they're annoying?" Clint grinned again.

"Not even then. They'll probably take them off you, anyway." Natalia had expected that, but her guns felt like so much of a part of her that, when they weren't in her hands or holsters, it always felt like there was a weight missing from her person. Another side effect of her training. Maybe Barton was the same way with his bow. He was packing it away now, carefully inspecting each arrow before storing them in his black quiver.

Clint looked up, catching her watching him. He gave her a quick smile, one that allowed herself to return, and headed over to the door.

"You got everything, Natasha?"

Packing had hardly been difficult for her. She was still wearing his clothes, her own ones stored in his bag. Besides her guns, she had nothing but herself to take from the tiny safe house. Even then, there was the question of how much of herself she was leaving behind. Maybe just enough to make her someone the Red Room could not claim to be the creators of.

"Yes." She replied softly, standing up and following him out of the door. "I have everything."


	6. Chapter 6

Both Natalia and Clint squinted into the bright mid-day sun when they stepped outside, Natalia holding a hand up to her eyes while Clint locked up the safe house door. He adjusted the bag, bow and quiver on his back and turned to her.

"The extraction point's a little way north of here, it won't take us long to walk out there. It's pretty standard for a safe house, not having the point too close by." He said, as he started walking, tugging a compass and map out of the side pocket of the bag. Clint barely gave them a cursory glance before returning them to the pocket.

"Do you actually know where you're going?" Natalia asked, in mild sort of way. Clint smiled at her,

and explained;

"I've been here a few times before, mainly when I was first recruited. They were training missions, but Coulson makes me supervise the new agents if I screw up on a mission. It works as punishment, I guess. The newbies are pretty fucking annoying. You'd hate them, half the idiots can't even use the comms systems properly."

"You seem to know a lot about them, how many missions have you screwed up, exactly?" Natalia asked, hiding a grin as Clint scowled.

"Another one, apparently."

"Ah, well. I'm sure the new agents will put up with you somehow."

"Don't laugh now, sweetheart, they might make you go through basic training as well." Clint retorted. Natalia didn't respond, merely sent another glare in his direction. She'd given up trying to be nicer. He was far too annoying, and, to be honest, it wasn't worth the effort. They continued to walk in a silence that wasn't awkward or especially friendly, only occasionally punctuated by Clint taking a look at his map and informing her where they were.

"I think it should be another few minutes..." He began, but was cut off by the sound of a jet of a sort Natalia didn't think she had ever seen before. Clint turned to her.

"This is it. Please be nice, Nat. I'm in enough trouble already." He pleaded with her, as they both watched several agents in dark uniforms like Clint's emerge from the plane.

"I make no promises, Barton." She replied. Clint sighed. A man in a black suit stepped out of the jet and began to make his way over to them.

"Barton, you'd better have a damn good explanation for this mess."

Natalia hadn't decided yet what she thought of Barton's handler, but she kind of felt sorry for the guy, who seemed to be questioning why the hell he ever let Clint into SHIELD. He was followed by

two people in dark uniforms like Clint's, one man and one woman. For now, they posed a larger threat to Natalia than Coulson. Each had a hand gun pointed at her. Coulson had no visable weapon, but she didn't doubt that he had one hidden somewhere. While Barton made some rather weak attempts at explaining to Coulson why she was still alive ("She hasn't killed me yet, Phil!"), Natalia ran through possible outcomes of the situation.

Number one, this had all been an elaborate plan to get her to trust Clint and now they were going to kill her. Somehow, she doubted this. Natalia had been trained to detect lies, and Clint's promises had

seemed real.

Number two, they were going to kill her no matter what Barton said. This seemed much more likely. Natalia began to evaluate her chances of taking on the SHIELD agents before her. She'd be able to shoot Coulson before he could attempt to draw a weapon from inside his jacket or the waistband of his trousers, which were the most likely places for one to be stored. The problem was that the other agents, the blonde woman and dark-haired man, would certainly fire at her as soon as she attacked Barton's handler. Unless they were both fantastically dreadful shots, she was too close to them to manage to avoid getting shot. On top of this, there was no way of knowing how many more agents there were in the jet, and gunshots would surely draw them out, giving her no choice but to try and take them all out and flee.

Number three, by some fucking miracle, Barton managed to convince Coulson to take her back to SHIELD. Judging by his current methods of persuasion ("She's really good at killing people! She'd be an awesome SHIELD agent!"), Natalia was beginning to wonder why the fuck she'd taken Barton up on his offer in the first place.


End file.
